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Monday, July 24, 2017

Democrats Offer America A Better Deal

"When you lose an election with someone who has, say, 40 percent popularity, you look in the mirror and say what did we do wrong?" Schumer said, speaking on ABC's This Week Sunday. "And the No. 1 thing that we did wrong is ... we didn't tell people what we stood for."

The simple truth is, Democrats haven't talked much about the fact that America is no longer working the way it should for "We the People" Americans. Democrats haven't been talking about incomes and wages not keeping up with the cost of living. Democrats haven't been talking about wage stagnation, underemployment, the exploding cost of a college education and the erosion of pensions are leaving many without hope. From rural towns to inner cities, Democrats haven't been talking about the millions who can no longer achieve the American dream. Meanwhile, the American people have watched as Washington special interests, millionaires and billionaires at home and foreign, and powerful multinational corporations acquire more and more wealth and power to dominate America's citizens and democratic institutions from local school boards to the federal government.

"In the last two elections, Democrats, including in the Senate, failed to articulate a strong, bold economic program for the middle class and those working hard to get there," wrote Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) in a
New York Times op-ed. "We also failed to communicate our values to show that we were on the side of working people, not the special interests. We will not repeat the same mistake. This is the start of a new vision for the party."

On Monday, House and Senate Democrats unveiled their A Better Deal legislative agenda that will again make America work for "We the People."

The "Better Deal" campaign strategy is modeled after the GOP's 1994 "Contract With America" legislative agenda campaign that resulted in Republicans gaining 54 House and 9 U.S. Senate seats.

The "Better Deal” message also plays off the title of President Trump’s first and best-known book, “The Art of the Deal.” It is true that Trump has so far shown himself to be one of the worst dealmakers ever to reside in the White House, unable even to get his own party to agree on something it has been promising for seven years, the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. It is also true that Trump has reneged on all of his populist promises, instead following the standard GOP game plan of tax cuts for the rich and entitlement cuts for everyone else.

But if there is one lesson Democrats should have learned from 2016, it is that opposition to Trump is not by itself enough to win elections. If Democrats use the "Better Deal" simply as a stick with which they beat Trump's in ability to close any legislative deal, they could lose more Congressional and state house seats the 2018 midterms.

The Monday morning Better Deal rollout focused on three broad parts of the “A Better Deal” legislative agenda: creating new jobs; lowering prescription drug costs; and restraining the power of corporations:

1) Pharmaceutical companies can without restraint raise the price of lifesaving drugs without justification. Democrats demand rules to stop prescription drug price gouging and further demand drug companies justify price increases to the public. Democrats will also pass legislation to allow and mandate that Medicare negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for older Americans.

2) Current antitrust laws are designed to allow huge corporations to merge, padding the pockets of investors while sending costs skyrocketing for everything from cable bills and airline tickets to food and health care. Democrats will pass legislation to again level the competitive free market playing field by breaking up corporations that have bought up all their competitors to create single seller market monopolies, and by reinstating FTC and SEC regulations to make sure big multinational corporations can not - through acquisition of all competitors - become a market's single seller of goods and services.

3) There are millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans, particularly those without a college degree. Democrats will pass legislation to foster secure full-time, living wage jobs. Democrats will pass legislation to give employers, particularly small businesses, a large tax credit to train American workers for unfilled jobs. This will have particular resonance in smaller cities and rural areas, which have experienced an exodus of young people who aren’t trained for the jobs in those areas.

In the coming months, Democrats will roll out additional legislative agenda proposals, from rebuilding rural America, to guaranteed healthcare availability, to fundamentally changing our trade laws to benefit American workers, not multinational corporations.

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